When GHCHS was first converted from a LAUSD run school to a charter it was done so with the promise of allowing the “community to be more actively involved.” In its first charter renewal application, it was able to legitimately state that its “governing structure is designed to foster participation by all stakeholders,” as these stakeholders were represented on a democratically elected governing board. As described in their charter, this board consisted of four teachers, one classified staff member, two parents and one administrator. They were all selected in an election of their peers. This governing structure would not survive.

The next charter renewal application had some positive changes, especially the addition of a student member selected “by the GHCHS Student Council and Advisor.” While this student was not given a vote, at least a step was taken towards giving the students a formal voice. Three At Large representatives were also added to the board as “community member[s],” though they did “not necessarily have to reside within the GHCHS attendance boundaries.” These were also not elected positions, but were instead appointed by the board itself, along with a newly created Retired Teacher position. Parents lost one seat on the board and were denied the right to vote for this representative as the remaining post was converted to an appointed position. The teacher representatives were still elected by their peers, but reduced from four seats to two.

When GHCHS submitted its last charter renewal in 2013, the school became even less democratic when it specified that the non-voting student representative had to be “approved by the Executive Director.” While this was supposed to be the only change to the makeup of the governing board, it looks very different today:

All elected teacher representatives and the classified employee representative were eliminated in a board meeting on December 15, 2014, after the charter had been renewed by the LAUSD School Board. While a representative from the state’s Charter Schools Division states that “changes in [a charter school’s] governance relating to the composition and/or qualifications of members of their board of directors” “would require a material revision,” and, therefore, require approval from the LAUSD, the District’s Charter Schools Division (CSD) refuses to hold the school that it is supposed to regulate to this standard. The Specialist assigned to the school, Alex Gomez, states that the CSD “determined that the 2014 change to the composition of Granada’s Board was not a material revision to the charter,” and did not submit it to the LAUSD Board for approval. With that action, the school was allowed to eliminate any democratically elected person to oversee its operations or participate in its decision making. The school is receiving taxpayer money, but the taxpayers have no control of how this money is spent.

As the chartering authority, the LAUSD has taken on the responsibility for ensuring that GHCHS conforms to the terms of its charter and can revoke this charter for “a material violation of the charter” or “violations of the law.” Unfortunately, this issue provides another example where the CSD is more interested in being a cheerleader for the charter industry than the regulator it is supposed to be. This is not a surprising outcome given that its director, José Cole-Gutiérrez, previously “served as general manager for the Los Angeles region of the California Charter Schools Association.” This is the equivalent of staffing the California Public Utilities Commission with former employees of the utilities it is supposed to regulate. It is time for the School Board to take action and replace the management of the CSD with a staff who understand their function is to serve the students of the District instead of the managers of charter schools.

The education code also gives the District “the right to appoint a single representative to the GHCHS governing board,” but it has not availed itself of this opportunity. In failing to doing so, it cedes ground to those who seek to privatize our education system and denies taxpayers the representation that they deserve. The District has also missed an opportunity to bypass the school’s attempt to silence alternative voices by using this seat to appoint a parent, teacher or classified employee to the board who is not beholden to the school’s governing board. Four of the seven members of the LAUSD Board were elected despite opposition from the charter schools. They, therefore, have the votes to demand an appropriate appointment for this and all other charter school governing boards as a way of demanding accountability and representation.